Teng leads race for fund raising

Chuck Finnie, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, August 5, 1998

1998-08-05 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Supervisor Mabel Teng carries a wide fund-raising lead in her effort to be re-elected and over her potential competitors for the presidency of the Board of Supervisors, initial campaign disclosure reports show.

Meanwhile, Donna Casey, a lone challenger raising big bucks to unseat one of five incumbents on the board, ranked third in the campaign cash hunt through the first six months of the year.

Teng snared $173,291. Supervisors Gavin Newsom and Tom Ammiano, who are also seeking re-election and are Teng's likely competitors for the board presidency, took in $125,485 and $86,164, respectively, according to their disclosure statements filed this week with the Ethics Commission.

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Because Ammiano and Teng, both elected to the board in 1994, have run once citywide for the office, they are considered top contenders for the board presidency. Newsom, although appointed to the board by Mayor Brown in February 1997, is considered a dark horse contender for the post because he's taken stands on visible issues that have garnered attention.

The board presidency, with its power to organize legislative committees and assign committee chairmanships, goes to the top vote-getter among all candidates for the board.

Casey, a former library commissioner who ran unsuccessfully for the board in 1996, picked up $86,695 in her attempt to gain a seat on the board, according to the report. Five seats on the 11-member board are up on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Ammiano said the fund-raising lead Teng held was of no concern to him.

"We are about at $100,000 now," Ammiano said of recent contributions since the close of the June 30 filing period. "My campaigns have always been about small contributions from lots of individuals - and we're smart with our money. "

Supervisor Mark Leno, appointed to the board just four months ago by Mayor Brown, bagged $83,896.

The Ethics Commission had yet to receive a disclosure statement from another Brown-appointee running for re-election, Supervisor Amos Brown.

This year marks the second supervisors race to be governed by a 3-year-old San Francisco campaign spending ordinance.

Under the measure, candidates who want to take contributions of up to $500 apiece must agree to an overall spending cap of $264,000. Candidates who refuse to comply are limited to donations of up to $100 per contributor.

Newsom, another mayor's appointee looking to be elected in his own right in November, bemoaned the importance of money in the race.

"We've been active and are committed to raising up to the (spending) cap, for better or worse, to allow us to have a campaign that is effective," he said.

The big-ticket expenditure in local supervisor races is campaign literature - each version of which runs tens of thousands of dollars to design, print and mail.

The fund-raising disclosures for the first six months of 1998 reveal candidates' political support and the special interests who might command influence after election day.

Teng's coffers generally were filled by donors connected to downtown corporate interests, Chinese American residents and small business owners and the garment industry.

Several of Teng's corporate donors also contributed to the Newsom, Casey and Leno campaigns.

Teng, whose campaign treasurer is Natalie Berg, chairwoman of the county's Democratic Central Committee, also carries the stamp of approval from local political party machinery that has controlled politics in The City for decades.

Comparatively, Ammiano is riding strong support from local labor unions that represent city workers or whose members work construction jobs requiring city approval.

Ammiano reported collecting more than $8,000, at least 10 percent of his money during the first half of the year, from labor groups and union representatives and organizers.

"The lines are pretty clear," Ammiano said. "I have always been a friend of labor." &lt;